For only the third time in the nation's history, the president of the United States has been impeached. The House vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump ran, unsurprising, along party lines except for three Democrats who voted against at least one article of impeachment or voted "present." Despite the celebratory words by Democrats, it is already clear what is going to come of this investigation — Trump will not be removed by the Republican-controlled Senate.
While you may or may not agree with the Trump impeachment, to uphold the integrity of the democratic system, the instrument that we use to investigate wrongdoing by our political leaders must remain a fair and unbiased measurement. This means that politicians must go beyond party lines to truly provide a fair trial for an impeached president. Granted, it is a lot to insist that Republicans hold their leaders accountable, just as it was for Democrats during the Clinton impeachment, but during that time several Democrats did break party lines and vote to impeach Clinton.
However, this was not the case for Republicans during the vote to impeach Trump. In fact, Republican politicians dared not utter a word against him — ironic because initially some Republicans called Trump a bigot and a xenophobe, unfit for office, yet now they are silent to the very things they feared.
This is particularly concerning when you consider that the Senate is led by Mitch McConnell.
All senators must swear by an oath that they will "do impartial justice" at the start of the trial. But McConnell has already said that "[he's] not impartial about this at all." The problem with this automatic admittance of bias is that McConnell, and all the Republican senators, know that Trump has violated the integrity of the presidency and they suspect that an impartial jury will discover that. Even more astounding than this is that we are in a time where party politicians will not even pretend to be impartial much less actually be impartial. It is as though politicians are just accepting and encouraging the fact that the idea of a fair and just democracy is shattered and the problem is they are not wrong.
This impeachment just proves that party polarizing politics has made a mockery of our political system. No longer can our leaders be expected to be held accountable for abuse of power and collusion. Trump himself knows that he will not be convicted, seen from his lack of self-defense, rather tweeting in all caps about the "evilness" of the Democratic Party. The tantrums of Trump just reflect the attitude of our government — the President has just become a spoiled child in time-out, with our politics the kindergarten classroom.
